Nathaniel Eaton - Biography

Biography

The sixth son of Rev. Richard Eaton (1565–1616) and Elizabeth Shepheard (1569–1636), Nathaniel was christened October 16, 1610, at the church of St Giles Cripplegate, London, England. He was educated at Westminster School and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary and good friend of John Harvard. He later attended the University of Franeker, where he studied under Rev. William Ames. He emigrated to New England between 1634 and 1637 and became the first "professor" of the nascent Harvard College. He erected Harvard's first building, planted its first apple orchard, established the colony's first printing press in March 1639, and created its first semi-public library.

Around the time that Eaton started teaching at Harvard, an Antinomian controversy had erupted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The governor at the time, John Winthrop, was well-noted for his extreme stance within the Puritan community and was greatly feared by many of the colonists. Even those who were Winthrop's close allies, such as Rev. Thomas Hooker, who cofounded the colony of Connecticut, were repulsed by his personality. As such, many left the colony and any Antinomians who didn't leave voluntarily were forced out, banished, or excommunicated (such as Rev. John Wheelwright who founded Exeter, New Hampshire, and his sister-in-law, Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, who founded a new colony in what later became Rhode Island).

Eaton's older brother, Gov. Theophilus Eaton, emigrated to the colonies at around the same time in 1637. Deciding that he didn't want to be involved in the animosity, he – like Rev. Thomas Hooker before him – founded a new colony, the colony of New Haven, though Winthrop and others literally begged both of them to stay.

In 1639, the year after Theophilus left, Eaton was fired from his job following allegations that he had beat one of his students too harshly and that his wife had supposedly served students hasty pudding with goat dung in it. Eaton's trial gave rise to the concept of court reporters. After the Church of Cambridge attempted an appeal on his behalf, Governor Winthrop refused them, saying that enough evidence had already been presented by several witnesses. The church, however, was able to secure a promise that all subsequent trials would be accompanied by a recording of facts so that defendants and plaintiffs could refer to evidence already presented without witnesses having to go through the entire process again. The only record of Eaton's own supposed "confession" was destroyed in a suspicious fire in the office of the famous historian, James Savage (1784–1873), and his guilt remains in doubt.

Henry Dunster succeeded Eaton in 1640 as Harvard's first president, and the first students graduated in 1642. Interestingly, Dunster also found himself confronting the students, albeit in a sterner fashion, actually having to whip two of them publicly for abusing one of the citizens of Cambridge. However, the students finally triumphed in the situation, and Dunster himself resigned in 1654 over disagreements with the church about infant baptism.

At around the same time that Eaton was dismissed from Harvard, he apparently was also excommunicated from the congregation in Cambridge. He moved to Virginia in 1640 and then sent for his wife and children who left New England, except for Benoni. According to Winthrop in his History of New England (known to be full of inaccuracies), the ship in which the family traveled disappeared without a trace. Benoni Eaton, left in Cambridge, was taken in by Thomas Chesholm and his wife, Isobel; Thomas was steward of Harvard College from 1650 to 1660. Through Benoni, Nathaniel has a large number of modern descendants.

Following the loss of his family, Eaton married the widow Anne (Graves) Cotton (1620–1684), the daughter of Captain Thomas Graves (1584–1635) of Virginia and Massachusetts, and served for several years as an assistant to the Anglican curate at Accomac, Virginia before returning to England, where he was appointed the Vicar of Bishop's Castle, Salop, in 1661 and Rector of Bideford, Devon, in 1669.

In 1647 Eaton was finally "exonerated" of a £100 debt that Winthrop misstated as being for £1,000 in his History of New England, ibid, and with which Eaton had supposedly absconded to Virginia in 1640. The exoneration is documented in Henry Dunster's record book for Harvard College as a copy of a letter by two benefactors that Dunster recorded directly underneath his first design of the seal of Harvard College. The 1640 endowment letter was footnoted in 1647 by Theophilus, who wrote:

this money was put wholey into the hands of my brother Nath:Eaton. 9th August 1647. Theo:Eaton.

Clearly, the intention of the footnote was to indicate that his brother had finally been repaid, and apparently Nathaniel had in part used the money to further his education as he did receive a doctorate (a Ph.D. and an M.D.) from the University of Padua in that same year. As for the £100, Thomas Symonds – a carpenter who had apparently assisted in the building of the college at Cambridge in 1639 and afterwards – was soon found to be in debt to one of the creditors of the college, John Cogan, for exactly the same amount. As stated elsewhere, the college building itself was poorly erected – Symonds being the responsible party after Nathaniel left – and eventually Symonds and at least one of his assistants were thrown into debtor's prison.